5-17-20 Grace-Benson Sermon

May 17th, 2020 Pastor Rose Sermon John 14:15-21 If you know that someone has to go through a short term unpleasant experience in order for them to get a long term benefit, and you can see the long term benefit more clearly than they can, it may be kind and helpful to share with them the perspective you have of the long term benefit with them to make the short term unpleasantness more tolerable. So for example, a parent who takes their young child to the dentist and says, now you will have to sit there and let the dentist look at your teeth and it may be unpleasant but he is going to help you keep your teeth healthy. Let them see the bigger picture.

On a Thursday Jesus was with his disciples and he knew that an incredible amount of unpleasant suffering would be experienced by him, and he knew it would be hard on the disciples too. He wanted to share with them before it happened, the long term benefit that would come through this unpleasant time. He wanted to share the big picture with them, and we still benefit so many years later by considering what Jesus died and rose to give us, and not miss the vision of the incredible long term blessing that he gives to us so that we do not miss out on the life that he died and rose again to give us. Are we really living out the full implications of the resurrection, or am I being satisfied with a lesser version of the life Jesus died to give me.

Jesus described a kind which he wants to give us, why that life is not consistently our experience, how that life can become more consistently the life we experience.

First of all, what’s the pattern of the life that results from Jesus dying and rising again? Jesus explains: “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” One result of connection to the risen Lord Jesus, is love for him, and obedience to his commands. Love and obedience are connected.

To love him means to want what he wants, to will what he wills, to enjoy him for who he is, not just what you get from him. To celebrate who he is, and to say, “your will be done, your kingdom come.” And love is connected to obedience.

It really works that way in all relationships. If you say to a husband of wife, “I love you,” but you continually and knowingly do something you know they hate, your love is shallow, and false. Love is connected to action. Now a husband or wife has a will which is not always perfect, and yet we sense that we should not make a habit of crossing their will. Jesus has a will that is perfect, and there is never a valid excuse for disobeying his will. Love is connected to obedience.

You could also compare the kind of love a parent has for a child. A loving parent doesn’t say to a child, “Because I love you, I will let you do whatever you want.” That’s not love. Love means that when a parent sees a child doing something that will harm them, and put themselves in danger, they lovingly stop them from continuing. Love says, “I want to guide you to do what is best for you, not necessarily what you want.”

Like an obedient child thriving when they listen to a loving parent; we thrive when we listen to our loving God. What is the command of Jesus? He once summed it up by saying, “Love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.” When we actually do that, life is good, enjoyable, satisfying. So many of our troubles come when we do not obey this simple command to love. Not all troubles come because of disobedience, some come unasked for and unearned. And there is no guarantee that when we do love like God desires that everything will automatically go well. There will be troubles, hardships, but when we obey God, there is also a joy and a satisfaction that stays with us.

One way life is good when you obey his commands: life feels more like a collaboration with God in our daily actions and to do’s. You are less likely to feel alone when you obey God. And Jesus said that when you love him and obey his commands, “I will ask my father and he will send you another counselor, the spirit of truth.” He promises the presence of the Holy Spirit. As God’s Word comes to you, the Holy Spirit comes to you as well to be your advocate, your defender, your encourager.

The Holy Spirit comes so that you know that you are not alone, that God does want you close despite your sins and weaknesses and failures. This is a good thing. You were made to have friendship with God. And Jesus just before his death and resurrection was telling his disciples that he wanted to give this friendship to them. One way we get to experience this life of closeness to God is by obeying his commands.

Now to be clear, obedience to God does not earn closeness to him in any way. Obedience to God and closeness to him both are results of his grace. He does in us what we could not do by ourselves, enabling us, motivating us to love him and obey his commands.

But this kind of life Jesus desires to give us leads to a question. Why don’t we more often experience a life like that? Answer is simply that we often do not love Jesus, we often do not obey his command to love God and love our neighbor. This doesn’t mean that every time we sin we totally lose our faith connection to him. But it does mean that when we sin our connection to him weakens, we are not acting out the implications of our faith connection to him. We functionally love ourselves more than God in many moments throughout each day.

Why? One answer: we live in a world that does not love Jesus, that does not know him or see him or obey him. Jesus talked about the spirit of truth coming to his disciples. That must also mean that there is a spirit of falsehood that is able to come to us as well. The spirit of truth is powerful, but not automatic. We must contend with a spirit of lies. We have the ability to live not aligned with the truth of who God is and what he has done for us. Instead who I am becomes more important that who God is, what I want can be more important than what God wants. We believe lies like, “I get the final say in what is right or wrong for me.” The spirit of the world says this lie, “God is not to be trusted. If you obey him, you will be missing out on what you want. It’d be better to do things your way.”

The result often is willful blindness to the truth of who God is and what the consequences of severing a connection to him is. People desire sin without hell, thinking that the two can be separated when in fact they cannot. And many will be lost forever because of the spirit of the world, of the devil, of the disobedient self.

That’s one barrier to experiencing the life Jesus desires for us.

Another barrier is to live like you’re an orphan. To act as if the problems you face are basically yours to fix, God won’t really help you out, you’re on your own. At the end of the 1800’s when Friedrich Nietche said, “God is dead,” he was doing it more as a warning than a declaration. He was predicting what would happen when such a fundamental foundation of life would crumble. If people stopped acting as if God were alive what would the consequences be? He predicted a lot of bloodshed and terrible acts. And he was right. The 20th century is considered by most historians to be the bloodiest in human history. But even though none of us have bought into the idea that God is dead, we have not committed terrible crimes against humanity. But we all act at times as if we need to be the real solution to our problems rather than looking to God to help. We often act as if we are orphans who Jesus has left alone, rather than as his children, with his presence constantly near to help.

A final barrier to a life of love for Jesus, obedience to his commands, and the experience of the Holy Spirit’s presence is our natural aversion to taking orders from anyone. Think of a teen who decides to go clean their room, and on the way there, a parent says, “Why don’t you clean your room?” The teen does a u-turn, unwilling to do what they were already planning on doing just because someone told them to do it. We all have this rebellious instinct inside us.

So we often don’t experience the full life Jesus describes here. Now, what’s the solution? How can we more consistently live with a settled love for Jesus, a desire and ability to obey his commands, and a knowledge of the presence of the spirit of truth, the counselor and advocate with us?

Jesus gives the answer. “Because I live, you also will live.” His commands were never meant to be burdensome, or guilt inducing. Jesus once criticized the teachers of the law for putting heavy burdens on men’s backs, but not lifting up a finger to help them do it. But Jesus is the opposite of that. He gives the command to obey him; but then not only lifts a finger to help; but gives his body and soul into death to help.

He became embodied so that he could bear the full weight of the responsibility for all the disobedience and rebellion from you and I and every other human to God. The burden crushed him in physical violence and cruelty; and in painful distancing from him to his father. Not only was he willing to go to the place of the burden, but he was able to rise again after death.

Now, because he lives in every sense of the word, he lives. And so you too will live in every sense of the word. Yes, this means one day you will get a glorified body in a perfect universe. But it also means that right

now a new kind of life is available to you from Jesus. The life Jesus lives to give is one that is characterized by love for him. We love because he first loved us. We live because he lives.

The gift of love for Jesus is worth celebrating whenever you see it in yourself or in others. It’s a miracle that we can have love for Jesus, a powerful result of his grace. Yes our love for him could be better and greater. But that there’s even any love for him is amazing, we thank God for it. Jesus died and rose not only to free you from a self-love which will ruin you if left unchecked; he also died and rose again to free you to a love for him which frees you and allows you to thrive and enjoy the adventure of life, even with its problems and moments of suffering.

His intended life for you involves you relating to an infinitely relational God. Jesus gives us a glimpse into the mystery of the trinity when he said, “Then you will know that the father is in me, and I am in you, and you are in me.” God is eternally relational and loving. You were intended to know and experience life as community and friendship with God. That’s what your sin takes away from you, and that’s what Jesus gives back. All because he was willing to lose that loving unity for a time, only to receive it back again.

And he has practical ways that he wants to give that friendship to you. Here are a 3 practical points.

First, notice how he wants you to experience his friendship in a community with other believers. Our English language doesn’t do a good job of distinguishing between you singular and you plural. So it’d be very easy, especially for us individualistic Americans, to read Jesus say, I will send the Holy Spirit to you, I will be in you, and to think he’s talking to each of us individually. But from v.15 to v. 20, every time he says you; it’s you plural. I will send the Spirit of truth to you plural. You plural will not be orphans, but you plural will see me and know me, I will reveal myself to you plural. There is something about being together with other believers, sharing our lives of faith together that strengthens us and encourages us. We’ve been missing the face to face for weeks though we appreciate the interaction we had with phone and computers. This is a blessing to be together. We as a group get the privilege of inviting others into our group so that they can know the closeness to God that we’ve been given.

Second way to experience friendship with God: Obey him. Live aligned with the truth as much as you can. Try to obey, and I know what many of us think; but we can’t obey on our own. That’s absolutely right. We need God’s grace to actually be able to obey. But that doesn’t mean don’t try. God wants us to grow in our ability to obey him out of our own initiative, not his forcing us. Forced obedience is not real obedience. He invites us to strive to obey, and promises to supply the grace required for us to actually do it. But why not try to obey the simple things God has commanded us, love God and love people.

And finally, how can you experience a life of loving Jesus, obeying him, and knowing the closeness of his Holy Spirit? Know what his commands are and what the power source is. Both are found in his Word. God’s Word is the best source of information of what he wants us to do. It’s also the best source of power to actually do it. Prioritize space for his word, both alone and in groups.

Obedience was never meant to be a burden. But instead a joyful way of life. In Jesus, obedience becomes a joy again. Because love for Jesus which is rooted in his love for us shown us at the cross, victorious at the empty tomb, that love changes life for the better. It benefits you in the long and also in the here and now.